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Significant   Listen
adjective
Significant  adj.  
1.
Fitted or designed to signify or make known somethingl having a meaning; standing as a sign or token; expressive or suggestive; as, a significant word or sound; a significant look. "It was well said of Plotinus, that the stars were significant, but not efficient."
2.
Deserving to be considered; important; momentous; as, a significant event.
Significant figures (Arith.), the figures which remain to any number, or decimal fraction, after the ciphers at the right or left are canceled. Thus, the significant figures of 25,000, or of.0025, are 25.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Significant" Quotes from Famous Books



... did not humbly sue for a gift from his father's bounty: he claimed a share of the property as of right. The terms are significant; "Give me the portion of goods that falleth ([Greek: to epiballon meros]) to me." The phrase faithfully depicts the atheism of an unbelieving human heart; the fool hath said in his heart, "No God." He has become brutish: as swine ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... his significant name, was rather too fond of the whiskey-bottle, and when he had taken a drop too much, he became an unmanageable wild beast. He had a great fancy for my husband, and never visited the other Indians without extending the same favour to us. Once upon a time, he broke the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... revival of the childhood mood was curious, he felt, almost significant, for it was symbolical of so much that he had deliberately, yet with difficulty, suppressed and put aside. During these years of concentrated toil for money, his strong will had neglected of set purpose the call of a robust imagination. He had stifled poetry just as he had stifled play. Yet ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... carry the joke farther than the exciseman dreamt of, laid hold of him in a twinkling, and executed the orders of his commander, notwithstanding all his nods, winking, and significant gestures, which the boatswain's mate would by no means understand; so that he began to repent of the part he acted in this performance, which was like to end so tragically; and stood fastened to the stake, in a very disagreeable state of suspense; casting many a rueful look ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... abolition, but, on being pressed to surrender the slave trade north of the equator, consented to abandon it to the north of Cape Formoso. In the following year Napoleon on his return from Elba ordered its immediate suppression, and this was not the least significant act of the Hundred Days. With Spain our diplomatists were less successful. The British government refused to renew its subsidy to Spain for the last half of 1814 except on condition that Spain relinquished the slave trade north of the equator at once, and consented to relinquish that south of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... significant that Holderness flushed deeply, but he remained silent. In a little while he left, and Henry was again a prey to most dismal thoughts. Bird, with his army and his cannon, doubtless had reached Kentucky by this time and was doing destruction. ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... reader has, no doubt, already discovered that the speaker was no less a personage) took three or four nervous strides across the room, returned to the table, threw himself in a chair, placed one foot on one hob, and one on the other, laid his finger on his nose, and, with a significant wink, said in a whisper, "Will, he knew I had been lagged! He not only refused to hear all I had to say, but threatened to prosecute—persecute, hang, draw, and quarter us both, if we ever dared to come out ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... in distinction from the poetry of conviction to which the New England group were so addicted, look at the "Songs of Summer" which our own poet brought out in 1857. For beauty pure and simple it still seems to me fresher and more significant than any single volume produced up to that date by any Eastern poet save Emerson. It was "poetry or nothing," and though it came out of time in that stormy period, it had to do with the making of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... has got among them. I don't pretend to say or know what it is that brings these two persons together;—and when I say together, I only mean that there is an evident affinity of some kind or other which makes their commonest intercourse strangely significant, as that each seems to understand a look or a word of the other. When the young girl laid her hand on the Little Gentleman's arm,—which so greatly shocked the Model, you may remember,—I saw that she had learned the lion-tamer's secret. ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... beg of you," he is reported to have said, "the epaulettes and sword-knots which Washington gave me. Let me die in my old American uniform, the uniform in which I fought my battles!" And once, it is declared, he gave vent to these most significant and terrible words: "God forgive me for ever putting on any other!" That country which he forswore in the hour of its direst need can surely afford to forgive Benedict Arnold as well. Grown the greatest republic of which history keeps any record, America need not find it difficult both to forget ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... more delay takes place, this empire, which has been acquired with such trouble, will be lost for nothing, and will not be easily regained." The Wazir was an old, faithful servant, and wise; his name was Khiradmand, a name self-significant. [59] He replied, "Though the king has forbidden us to come into his presence, yet go you: I will also go—may it please God that the king be inclined to call me to his presence." After saying this, the Wazir brought ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

... Philadelphia. Indeed these concerns manifested an eagerness to join. The fact that, unlike the Cleveland refiners, many of the firms in these other cities took Standard stock, and so became parts of the new organization, is in itself significant. They evidently realized that they were casting their fortunes with the winning side. The huge shipments which the Standard now controlled explain this change in front. Every day Mr. Rockefeller could send from Cleveland to the seaboard a train, sixty cars long, loaded ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick

... Poe did not concern himself with. In Poe's hands the story of "The Ambitious Guest" might have thrilled us with a more powerful horror, but it would have lacked the ethical beauty which Hawthorne gave it and which makes it significant beyond a mere feat of verbal legerdemain. And the subtile simplicity of "The Great Stone Face" is as far from Poe as the pathetic irony of "The Ambitious Guest." In all his most daring fantasies Hawthorne is natural, and, though he may project ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... topped the divide now between the Fork and Sulphur Creek Basin, and the green fields, the alfalfa meadows, and the painted farm-houses thickened beneath them. Strange how significant all these signs were now. A few days ago they had appeared doubtful improvements, now they represented the oncoming dominion of the East. They meant cleanliness and decent speech, good bread and sweet butter. ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... in particular that deep secret of the Gospel, unspeakably precious to the soul which indeed longs to be holy—the Indwelling of God in the believer. It here appears in close and significant connexion with the revelation of the love and work of the Incarnate and Atoning Lord; as if to remind us without more words that He who gave Himself for us did so not only to release us (blessed be His Name) from an infinite peril, ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule

... New Jersey Governor was prepared by him while he was seated on the side of a little bed in one of the rooms of the Sea Girt cottage. He looked at me intently, holding a pad and pencil in his hands, and then wrote these significant words to Mr. Bryan: "You ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... errors have been corrected without note, whilst more significant amendments have been listed at the end of the text. The oe ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes

... pride, and self-righteousness of Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had attacked ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... seemed to strike him as something monstrously, almost fiendishly significant: as if her random word had at last thrust into his hand the clue to their whole unhappy difference. Without understanding this, she guessed it from the change in his face: it was as if a deadly solvent had suddenly decomposed its ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... particularly partial to an aerial acrobatic performance, unsurpassed for gracefulness and skill, and significant of the joy of life and liberty and the delirious passion of the moment. With a mighty effort, a chattering scream and a preliminary downward cast, he impels himself with the ardour of flight—almost vertically—up above the level of the tree-tops. ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... those small, highly significant nothings which are only the barrier behind which go on the eager questionings and unspoken answers of youth and love. They had known each other for years, had exchanged the same give and take of neighborhood talk when they met as now. To-day nothing ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... "don't-worry" chapters in this old Bible, one in the Old Testament and one in the New. In the Old Testament is the Thirty-seventh Psalm with its oft-repeated "fret not." The word under that English phrase "fret not" is significant. It is so blunt as to sound almost like a bit of American slang. Literally it means "don't get hot." The New Testament has the sixth chapter of Matthew with Jesus' own words. One should be careful here to note the better reading of the revision. The old version says "take no thought," ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon

... of the Revolutionary struggle, disposed of the subject to which I refer in the only way consistent with the Union of these States and with the march of power and prosperity which has made us what we are. It is a significant fact that from the adoption of the Constitution until the officers and soldiers of the Revolution had passed to their graves, or, through the infirmities of age and wounds, had ceased to participate actively in public ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... noise of some one running upstairs quickly made the sisters look up from their work. Footsteps are very significant at times, and these ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge

... to think about the moment when Honora and her cousin met. Honora had come home, breathless from the laboratory. It had been a stirring afternoon for her. She had heard words of significant appreciation spoken to David by the men whom, out of all the world, she would have chosen to have praise him. She looked at Miss Morrison, who had come trailing down in a cerise evening gown as if she were a bright creature of another species, somewhat, Kate could not help ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... on one foot and gave a cough, unnecessarily loud but sufficiently significant. It was enough for the quick wit ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... These are significant words. The distinguished physician who wrote them might just as well have said that the generally prevailing theory that in voice-production the muscles of the larynx exist solely to open and close the glottis and to regulate ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... woman to dream that she has left her abode, is significant of slander and falsehoods being ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... and Harriet Burrell exchanged significant glances. George Baker observed the looks. He nodded to Billy. Larry ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge

... also. It was pleasing to see with what attention they were heard. Their speeches were composed of short sentences; to each of which two or three old men answered, by nodding their heads, and giving a kind of grunt, significant, as I thought, of approbation. It was impossible for us to know the purport of these speeches; but we had reason to think they were favourable to us, on whose account they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... been accomplished by daylight, which would break about half-past three o'clock. As we have good reason to think, Caesar's march, however long a time it may have occupied, was in search of fresh water, and it is significant that when the Britons were at last seen, they "were advancing to the river with their cavalry and chariots from the higher ground." In other words, Caesar's march had brought him into the valley of the Great Stour, where he not only found the water he sought, but also the enemy, who ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton

... with a lugubrious expression went to hall, and gratified his malice by buzzing and babbling among his fellows all sorts of lies and exaggerations about Julian's conduct and state of mind. When Kennedy came in, however, he put an abrupt end to Hazlet's calumnies by handling his own tumbler with so significant a glance, that Hazlet assumed a look of terror, and, amid shouts of laughter, retired with all speed out of ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... off. I have seen him do so at a small matter that struck him, and was a sport to no one else. Mr Langton told me, that one night he did so while the company were all grave about him: only Garrick, in his significant smart manner, darting his eyes around, exclaimed, 'VERY jocose, to be sure!' M'Leod encouraged the fancy of Dr Johnson's becoming owner of an island; told him, that it was the practice in this country to name every man by his lands; and ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... Congress in 1843 at thirty-four years of age, and after a distinguished service of eight years was sent by President Fillmore as Minister-Plenipotentiary to Brazil. After his return he had taken no part in political affairs until now. His re-appearance in Congress was therefore significant. He was at once placed at the head of the Committee on Military Affairs, then of superlative importance, and subsequently was made chairman of Ways and Means, succeeding Mr. Stevens in the undoubted leadership of the House. He was admirably fitted ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... unnoted. Entering at the back door, and passing through the kitchen, he had surprised his parents in the painful scene above described. As he saw his mother's form in dim outline kneeling at the bed, her face buried in its covering—as he heard his father's significant words—the quick-witted youth realized the situation. While he loved his father dearly, and honored him for his many good traits, he was also conscious of his faults, especially this most serious one now threatening such fatal consequences—that of charging ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... warm, bright and ruddy hue, which some might consider as approaching the rustic. Her eyes, as they sparkle with delight at the pretty array of bright colors, might not be admired as of the poetic or ideal type, but in their depths lurks a keen and significant expression of the peculiarly intelligent and earnest appeal that seldom speaks in vain. The neat and cosy parlor, with its many articles of female handiwork, speak for the taste and talent displayed by this interesting girl. The pretty sketches of familiar haunts near her loved home showed that ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... that the savages would attempt to board the boats, crept quietly around in the darkness, collected all the axes, and placed one by the side of each man, leaning the handle against his knee. While performing this significant act she uttered not a word, but returned to her own seat in silence, retaining a sharp hatchet ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... character and significant work of Prince Henry the Navigator have made him the subject of many biographies. One of the earliest of these was G. de Veer, Prinz Heinrich und seine Zeit (1864). More detailed is R. H. Major, Life of Prince Henry the Navigator (1868, abbreviated edition, 1874). A number of ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... present difficult to form a decided opinion; but, as far as observation would admit, I am inclined to think they cannot be relied on with any degree of certainty, to the southward of the 25th degree of latitude. The period at which they fall being about January and February, it is a significant fact that the grasses found buried beneath the mud during these months had generally attained only to nearly half ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory

... from him they ventured again, first timidly, then more boldly, to grasp the objects around him. At such times Aasa could talk and jest almost like other girls, and her mother, to whom "other girls" represented the ideal of womanly perfection, would send significant glances, full of hope and encouragement, over to Lage, and he would quietly nod in return, as if to say that he entirely agreed with her. Then Elsie had bright visions of wooers and thrifty housewives, and even Lage dreamed of seeing the ancient honor of the ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... a significant entry on page 273 of the published trial: in ista pagina nihil est scriptum. The empty page tells of the moment when the papal commissioners, having heard that the fifty-four had been ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... through to the Yellowstone and communicate with General Terry's forces, known to be concentrated at the mouth of the Tongue. Some had come back, chased in to the very guard by yelling "hostiles." Several had failed to return at all, but—significant fact—none had succeeded in getting through. The last of June would soon be at hand; the forces that were to co-operate—Crook's from the Big Horn foot-hills at the south, Terry's from the banks of the Yellowstone at the north—had reached ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... is equally significant. In Hebrew it means "she who conceals," a fitting name for the niece of Mordecai, the woman who well knew how to guard a secret, and long hid her descent and faith from the king and the court. She herself had been kept concealed for years in the house of her uncle, withdrawn from ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... pay the giver of it directly, we do really pay him in the long run. A is hospitable to B, B to C, C to D, and so on, and at last Z is hospitable to A. It is largely a matter of "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us." It is significant that the Russian's parting word equivalent to our "God be with you" ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... there is always danger of applying the bandage too tightly, especially if the parts swell under the bandage. If this happens, there is increase of pain which may be followed by numbness of the limb and, what is still more significant, coldness and blueness of the extremities below the bandage, particularly of the fingers and toes. In such cases the bandage must be removed and reapplied with less force. If the ankle or knee be sprained the patient must go to bed for at least twenty-four hours, and give ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various

... passage is the creed that breathes the very life and spirit of the most significant and overwhelming missionary period in the history ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various

... spoke except to a purpose, and his manners were quiet, almost furtive. He had thus early in his career gained a nickname that was peculiarly significant in Wall Street. He was ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... in fervour, and he put the finishing question with an intensity that called forth a chorus of "Waughs!" and "Ho's!" with a glittering of eyes, and a significant grasping of scalping-knives and tomahawks that rendered ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... cries came from the lips of none other than the chieftain whose now bare head bore significant traces of Bruno Gillespie's handiwork, and he seemed bent on rushing directly into the presence of the Sun Children, until Red Heron interposed, ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... association with man into which Jesus has entered. It is the task of theology to bring together the various passages of Scripture, and exhibit their systematic connection and relative value for a doctrine of soteriology. For Ethics the one significant fact to be recognised is that in a human life was fulfilled perfect obedience, even as far as death, a perfect obedience that completely met and fully satisfied the demand of the very ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... rested upon them. But the routine business had no sooner been completed than the president became aware that the harmony which had existed from the beginning was in danger of being disturbed. Inquiries were made which were too significant to be overlooked, and veiled criticism came from quarters where previously he had believed existed absolute confidence in himself and full approval ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... of the Eatanswill Gazette. I am inclined to believe that the notorious and brilliant Dr. Maginn was intended. He and Pott were both distinguished for their "slogging" or bludgeoning articles, and both were High Tories, or "Blue," as Mr. Pott had it. But what is most significant is that in the very year Pickwick was coming out, to wit, 1836, Maginn had attracted general attention and reprobation by the scandal of his duel with Grantley Berkely, arising out of a most scurrilous review of the latter's novel. To this meeting he had been brought with some difficulty—just ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald

... accordingly. Hence, his energies and his sensibilities are all expanded, and what he feels he seeks to tell in various accents, and in different ways. For instance, our little dog comes and pulls his mistress's gown and makes significant whines, if any one is in or about the premises whom he thinks has no right to be there. I have seen a dog pick up a stick and bring it in his mouth to his master, looking at the water first and then at his master, evidently that ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... at me hard as I drew this bow at a venture, and then said, "You must know, Batchelor, that I have a right to sit in that room when I choose. And," he added, dropping his voice to a whisper and looking at me in a most significant way—"and if the door happens to be open, and if you and Smith happen to talk secrets, there's every chance of their ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... Fionn was thoughtful, and now, although running hard, he was thoughtful. There was no movement of his beloved hounds that he did not know; not a twitch or fling of the head, not a cock of the ears or tail that was not significant to him. But on this chase whatever signs the dogs gave were not understood ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... in practical affairs, was more useful to a man of the world. The first business which brought them into close connection was the Lancasterian controversy. The strong interest roused by this agitation was significant of many difficulties to come. The average mind had been gradually coming to the conclusion that the poor should be taught to read and write. Sunday schools and Hannah More's schools in Somersetshire had drawn the attention of the religious world ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... It may be that in their ancient rhapsodies (many of which Mr. James Mooney has collected for the Smithsonian Institution) addressed to bird or flame or beast the Indians adopted a poetic license no more significant of polytheism than the flights of fancy of many Christian poets in odes to the moon, to Fate, "to the red planet Mars," to the "wild west wind." Mere impersonation and invocation in apostrophe and paeans ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... cast a significant glance at the girl out of the corner of her eye, allowed herself to be lifted up into the cart; the whip cracked, and off ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... voice, his bearing, his awkwardness, it may be his smile, even his gloom, his avoidance of your eye,—all are significant, all ought to be studied, but without apparent attention. You ought to conceal the most disagreeable discovery you may make by an easy manner and remarks such as are ready at hand to a man of society. As we are unable to detail ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... distances over the ground a few stunted trees—hawthorns, beeches, and oaks. The beech, however, predominated, in honour of the county in which the common was situated; for though, probably, if we knew the origin of the name bestowed on each county in England, we should find them all significant, yet none, I believe, would be found more picturesque or appropriate than that given by our good Saxon ancestors to the county in question—being Buchen-heim, or Buckingham: the home ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... quarter I desired, that I stumbled as I rose, and found difficulty in answering him. Nor did I recover my self-possession for hours; for the story he had to tell—after numerous apologies for his presumption in disturbing me—was so significant of coming evil that my mind was thrown again into turmoil, and the passions which I had tried to smother were ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green

... she conducted the conversation in this polite strain, and I was obliged to say, in reply to a query of hers, that I did not find her the least altered, though I should never have recognised her but for this rencontre. She told Haggarty with a significant air to get the wine from the cellah, and whispered to me that he was his own butlah; and the poor fellow, taking the hint, scudded away into the town for a pound of beefsteak and a couple of bottles ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... started at these sounds as if the earth had yawned at his feet. His countenance was equally significant of terror and rage. As soon as he regained the power of utterance, he spoke:—"Clithero! Curses light upon thy lips for having uttered that detested name! Thousands of miles have I flown to shun ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... the brief and touching reference to his father-in-law, serves to convey to all friends of this work the assurance that he to whom Mr. Muller left its conduct has also learned the one secret of all success in coworking with God. It sounds, as the significant keynote for the future, the same old keynote of the past, carrying on the melody and harmony, without change, into the new measures. It is the same oratorio, without alteration of theme, time, or even key: the leading performer is indeed no more, but another hand takes ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... an instant, forgetful of everything excepting my duty to this girl whom I had come so far to find, and who now was plainly a prisoner in Indian hands. At the entrance of the tepee, a scowling warrior pushed me roughly back, pretending not to understand my eager words of expostulation, and, by significant gesture, threatening to brain me with his gun-stock if I persisted. A slight return of reason alone kept me from striking the fellow down and striding over his prostrate body. While I stood struggling with this temptation, ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish

... transition from a crude civilisation to a highly developed civilisation, and we shall do well to remember that the process of transition which we are now witnessing is one in which individual mistakes and failures will be more conspicuous, though no more significant, ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen

... I behold the Infinite, but because I have, myself, a moment of perfection. Herein it is that our theory constitutes a complete contradiction to all "expression" or "significant" theories of the Beautiful, and does away with the necessity those theories are under of reading sermons into stones. The yellow primrose needs not to remind us of the harmony of the universe, or to have ulterior ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... science or philosophy is able to grant us this central standpoint for viewing the field of knowledge and the meaning of life. The answer to the complexity of the problem of existence is to be found in something which gathers up under a larger and more significant meaning the results of knowledge and life. This volume will attempt to elucidate this all-important point of view—a point of view which is so needful in our days of specialisation and of material interests. It may be, and Eucken ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones

... their hammering, and the harbour at his feet lay still as a lake. They were memories, perhaps, that buzzed so swiftly past his ears—trivial recollections by the hundred, all so little, and yet now immensely significant. ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... is it?" she asked with languid interest, having expected something more significant. ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... kind!" said the mother hastily, with a significant look at her neighbor, which Polly did not fail to note and puzzle over. Tending Orlando gave her much time for puzzling. She was known as an "old fashioned" child, with ways quite her own, always to be depended upon, and confiding ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell

... country. Hence there is always a hope that, if the first two were destroyed, the third might be preserved. So, for instance, the collection of royal decrees (cedulas) is imperfect at the City of Mexico. There are lacunae of several decades, and it is perhaps significant that the same gaps are repeated in the publication of the "Cedulas" by Aguiar and Montemayor. In regard to ecclesiastical documents the difficulty is greater still. The archives of the Franciscan Order, to which the missions on the Rio Grande were assigned almost until the ...
— Documentary History of the Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico; I. Bibliographic Introduction • Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier

... his ears, the easy-flowing, pointed criticisms on matters of public interest, the broad philosophy, sometimes faintly dashed with bitterness and cynicism, but always sound, he found it hard to associate him with the significant sobriquet of the ranch. Tea-time found him still wrestling with the unsolved problem. But, with the advent of Diane with the table and laden tray, he set it ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... foaming cider. Near the table, in a high-backed armchair, reclined, fast asleep, a woman of about thirty years of age, her face the very picture of health and freshness. Upon her knees lay a large cat, with her paws folded under her, and her eyes half-closed, purring in that significant manner which, according to feline habits, indicates perfect contentment. The two friends paused before the window in complete amazement, while Planchet, perceiving their astonishment, was in no little degree secretly delighted ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... East Prussia—was organized as a separate, petty state, with its own Diet or form of representative government, its own army, and its own independent administration. After a hard constitutional struggle, Frederick William deprived the several Diets of their significant functions, centered financial control in his own person, declared the local armies national, and merged the three separate administrations into one, strictly subservient to his royal council at Berlin. Thus, the three ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... Wilson. Many conjectured that she had missed her foot in the dark, and fallen into the river, and been carried out to sea by the reflux of the tide. Others again hinted at suicide, from extreme grief; and some very charitable females nodded and winked something meant to be significant, about some people's not being easily known—and that some people, provided that they got a grip of a man, would not be very nice about the object or ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... fearlessness and invincible youthful confidence on the part of her escort that she felt no timidity. There were moments when a bit of the charmed landscape unfolding before them overpowered them both, and they halted to gaze,—sometimes without a word, or only a significant gesture of sympathy and attention. At one of those artistic manifestations Mrs. Ashwood laid her slim gloved fingers lightly but unwittingly on John Milton's arm, and withdrew them, however, with a quick girlish apology and a foolish color which ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... a further feature which arrests us in the life and ministry of the Baptist. He was ordained to be "the clasp" of two covenants. In him Judaism reached its highest embodiment, and the Old Testament found its noblest exponent. It is significant, therefore, that through his lips the law and the prophets should announce their transitional purpose, and that he who caught up the torch of Hebrew prophecy with a grasp and spirit unrivalled by any ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... verdant line the dark-brown heath which it traversed, though the distinction was not so easily traced when they were walking on it. [Footnote: This sort of path, visible when looked at from a distance, but not to be seen when you are upon it, is called on the Border by the significant name of a Blind-road.] The old man pursued his journey with comparative ease; and, unwilling again to awaken the jealous zeal of his young companion for the Roman faith, he discoursed on other matters. The tone of his conversation was still grave, moral, and instructive. He ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... still in Lombardy," said Vajdar, with a significant nod of the head. "We have our ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... packing trunks. In forty-eight hours there would be the folding of tents, and Hamilton Hill would be deserted. It added a pensiveness to his manner that made him more than ever charming. It rained on the way home, and it seemed to him significant that his first ride and his last with Becky should ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey

... laid under a neighboring tree. Mr. Marsh now went down toward the castle to assist Khudhr in bringing the rest of our property toward the tree. This done, Khudhr returned to the crowd to learn what he could of their intentions. He soon came back to us in evident terror, and said, with a significant motion of his hand, that they ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... years, when there are a considerable number of young men to be initiated together.[388] Although we are still in the dark as to the real meaning of this and indeed of almost all similar secret societies among savages, the solemn part played by a member of the society at the funeral rites seems very significant. Why should he come mysteriously to the melancholy music of the horn, paint the corpse red and white, crown it with red roses, and then vanish again to music as he had come? It is scarcely rash to suppose that this ceremony has some reference ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... as a foreign body and excites the womb to contract as it does during an ordinary confinement. The contractions open up the mouth of the womb and the fetus is expelled together with its membranes and after-birth. The significant and the most important symptom of a miscarriage or abortion is hemorrhage or bleeding from the privates. The flow of blood may not amount to much or it may be excessive and alarming; it may not be constant, it may come from time to time in the form ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... conduct, and show that our bravery has not entirely run away with our common sense. And hark you also, while I have a moment's speech of you,—do you and your wife heedfully follow my example at supper!" These words were spoken with a significant tone and ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... significant little story of an acquaintance which he formed with a young lady at Cape Northumberland, and how he ended it. We are delicately told that, having become a warm admirer of his dashing horsemanship, the lady used to walk in early morning ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... at Bruton Street, the welcome that met him was almost cordial. Lord Danesbury—not very demonstrative at any time—received him with warmth, and Lady Maude gave him her hand with a sort of significant cordiality that overwhelmed him with delight. The climax of his enjoyment was, however, reached when Lord Danesbury said to him, 'We are glad to ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... countenance, and concluded that she had for a certainty heard the raillery recently indulged in by Pao-yue and that it had fallen in with her own wishes; and hearing her also suddenly ask the question she did, she answered with a significant laugh: "What I saw was: 'Li Kuei blows up Sung Chiang and subsequently ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... was wondering in an analytical way whether the action was habitual with her, or significant of embarrassment. At length he turned to follow her, but Molly had failed in her object; the others had ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... in the motions of stellar assemblages after the subtraction from them of their common perspective element. By varying the materials and method of analysis, Prof. Lewis Boss, Director of the Albany Observatory, hopes that corresponding variations in the upshot may betray a significant character. Thus, if stars selected on different principles give notably and consistently different results, the cause of the difference may with some show of reason be supposed to reside in specialties of movement appertaining ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various

... when mentioning Saffron Walden describe the houses as being of "mean appearance,"[16] which remark, taking into consideration the debased taste of the times, is significant. A perfect holocaust followed, which extending through that shocking time known as the Churchwarden Period has not yet spent itself in the present day. Municipal improvements threaten to go further still, and in these commercial days, when combined capital ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... which one meets everywhere, is significant of the aim of nature, but is mere stenography. There are higher degrees, and nature has more splendid endowments for those whom she elects to a superior office; for the class of scholars or writers, who see connection where the multitude see fragments, and who are impelled to exhibit ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Teubner give VII. 202 as "Nubilaque indico..." The word "iudico" does not fit the metre, and may be typographic error. ouranothen katagontes... The wording was reconstructed with the aid of the Loeb text, which had no significant incompatible points ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts

... The deficiencies in his education which prevented his full enjoyment of social pleasures were soon made up. He not only learned to dance, an accomplishment which must have taxed his perseverance to the utmost, but he spent some months in learning Spanish; and it is significant that to the end of his life he retained a copious vocabulary of those tender diminutives which fall so ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... the Caesars became extinct in Nero; an event prognosticated by various signs, two of which were particularly significant. Formerly, when Livia, after her marriage with Augustus, was making a visit to her villa at Veii [639], an eagle flying by, let drop upon her lap a hen, with a sprig of laurel in her mouth, just as she had seized it. Livia gave orders to have the hen ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... formalities. He was, in fact, met at Quarantine by Judge Trent, one of the most distinguished members of the New York Bar since his retirement from the Bench, and they went at once to the Prince's stateroom and remained there until it was time to leave the ship. It is significant, however, that the Prince, after engaging a suite at the Ritz-Carlton, and lunching there with Judge Trent, took the afternoon train for Washington. As he recently left his estate in Switzerland to return to Vienna and accept a position in the Cabinet, and as it is ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... What is so significant, by the way, or so picturesque, as a dinner-table wrecked by good cheer and hospitality? The stranded, crumpled napkins, the bunching together of half and wholly emptied glasses, each one marking a period of content—the low candles, with half dried tears still streaming down their ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... the paragraph that filled her with dismay was a short French poem of three verses to be put into English prose. She read it again and again, but, from the idioms and inversions it contained, totally failed to comprehend its meaning. Indeed, she could see from the significant glances which—talking being forbidden—were exchanged between the girls, that she was not the only one who failed to appreciate the beauty, or even the ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley

... demonstrates it as the extreme ineffectually of the moments of contrast with which Strauss has attempted to relieve the dominant mood of his work. Just as in "Salome" the more restless and sensual passages, lazily felt as they are, are nevertheless infinitely more significant than the intensely contrasting silly music assigned to the Prophet, so, too, in "Elektra," the moments when Strauss is cruel, brutal, ugly are of a much higher expressiveness than those in which he has sought to write beautifully. For whereas in moments of the first ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... copy made at Dresden. But as I have recently finished a clean copy myself, I cannot bear the thought that the work should not yet be in YOUR HANDS. I did not want to let you have the fragments, for I consider it an important and significant event to place the WHOLE in your hands. Keep it for a month, to have a look at it occasionally; after that I shall ask you to return it for a time, so as to get ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... shall know them" is a criterion based on authority that we are none of us inclined to dispute. Miss Macpherson boasts—and a very proper subject for boasting it is—that she belongs to no ism. It is significant, however, that the Refuge bears, or bore, the name of the "Revival" Refuge, and the paper which contained the earliest accounts of its working was called the Revivalist, though now baptized with the broader title of the Christian. Amid ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... accident. Francis likes him not, and will clear you of unknightly conduct, if—" He finished with a boldly significant look, which was not lost upon ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... me that there was something significant about the arrival of these books at this time. I devoured them with a bitterness and a sadness born of despair. "Yes, you are right," I said to myself, "you alone possess the secret of life, you alone dare to say that nothing is true ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... the latter's historic speech of November 9th, alone held the dogs of war in leash. The remark of a member of the Trades' Union Congress at Leeds on September 7th of this year that in his opinion "King Edward was about the only statesman that England possessed" was significant in this connection even if it was unfair. Still more significant was the description of His Majesty in the Radical News of London, on November 10th, as "the first citizen of the world and the chief ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... where the tradition is interrupted. Thus in the province of Quito many of the summits of the Andes bear names which belong neither to the Quichua (the language of Inca) nor to the ancient language of the Paruays, governed by the Conchocando of Lican.) The words Caribs and Cannibals appear significant; they are epithets referring to valour, strength and even superior intelligence.* (* Vespucci says: Charaibi magnae sapientiae viri.) It is worthy of remark that, at the arrival of the Portuguese, the Brazilians gave to their magicians the name of caraibes. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... denied themselves no reasonable luxury and seemed to have adopted a shut-in life from a pure love of seclusion. The master was never seen at the stores. It was the servant who made the purchases, and this by means of gestures which were often strangely significant. Indeed, he seemed to have great power of expressing himself by looks and actions, and rarely caused a mistake or made one. He would not endure cheating, and ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... Alexander himself first visited the site of Troy and there went through those dramatic acts of sacrifice to the Ilian Athena, assumption of the shield believed to be that of Achilles; and offerings to the great Homeric dead, which are significant of the poetic glamour shed, in the young king's mind, over the whole enterprise, and which men will estimate differently according to the part they assign to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... company with music and singing; among the rest Miss Simmons sang a little Scotch song, called Lochaber, in so artless, but sweet and pathetic a manner, that little Harry listened almost with tears in his eyes, though several of the young ladies, by their significant looks and gestures, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... me the most significant and that I liked best about the President of the Company who listened to Jim, was the discovery I made in a few minutes, when I met him, that unlike Henry Ford, whom I met for the first time the same week, he was not a genius. He was a man with a hundred thousand ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee



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